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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

I was amused by the answer one commenter gave to the Expelled movie. When you cannot answer you resort to the courts? As Stephen C. Meyer has said, beware the sound of one hand clapping. Science itself will never be settled in courts. But prejudice will be judged. Don't miss my follow-up post!

We had the happy task last weekend to drive Dr. Jonathan Sarfati around the area and be part of the crew coordinating the three presentations he made. We had a great chance to discuss various scientific and political questions and I found that he and I both have the same early favorite for President in 2012, he really likes the diet tea I prefer and also Jonathan has a taste for meat lover's pizza. He prefers Coke Zero to Pepsi. But you have to ask him for his preferences and make a point to check on his needs as he is a very undemanding person. He would ask for things that would make a presentation better but never made one demand. Very refreshing personality for a world-traveling speaker and best-selling author, chess Grandmaster and holder of doctorates in two branches of science. No pretentions.

Jonathan with friends Harry and Nancy, church elder and musician, respectively

The great thing about Jonathan is that he is entirely unimpressed with his own accomplishments, always quite polite and comfortable in his own skin. We remembered meeting him three years prior at a conference in North Carolina and at that time his wife was with him. At that time he worked quite hard to play a large number of chess players with masters points and also a small number while blindfolded. He was actually glad that we had not set up a chess match this time, as he would be making three presentations on Sunday beginning at 8 AM and going until about 6:30-7:00 PM with one short break between numbers two and three while we changed venues. Fortunately I have a full-sized van that could hold all the boxes of books, magazines and DVDs and assorted paraphernalia that had been shipped to us ahead of time. After three presentations the audiences had signed up in droves for the Creation magazine and purchased most of the books and DVDs that had been shipped to us. In fact we ran out of a couple of popular books. People were hungry to get information about scientific evidence that had not been spun by Darwinists.

Me and Jonathan before the first presentation

Harry and Bonnie provided Jonathan with housing and we celebrated at the end of it all with a big pizza on Sunday evening. Jonathan was quite sure he never would have been a world champion at chess despite his famous match with Boris Spassky. He said that he started too late in life and that science was his calling, although he is definitely a political animal as well. That meant that he, Debbie and I wound up talking more about politics than science, as the Creation.com page has the answers to most questions if you take the time to look.

Jonathan is a very good speaker, mixing in humor early in his presentations and running through large amounts of information using powerpoint from his laptop for his preliminary talk and then he seemed to have a Powerpoint for almost any follow-up questions people had. No one had a question that he could not answer.

It is a shame that no Darwinist will debate Jonathan Sarfati. At the last conference we attended, even Dr. Hugh Ross, who is a theistic evolutionist, backed out of a scheduled debate with Sarfati for fear of being clobbered. Considering his wide range of understanding of areas besides his specialties of Physical Chemistry and Spectroscopy that give him a great overview of geology and paleontology and microbiology and history and the Bible, there probably are no Darwinists who would have a chance in a square debate. Too bad I don't know a big wheel in the Darwinist world. Oh, well. Maybe when the Darwinist viewpoint begins to become widely investigated someone like Richard Dawkins will agree to debate Sarfati out of absolute desperation? Not by back-and-forth written dialogue, either, because the Darwinist could get all sorts of people helping him to craft answers that sent the debate down rabbit trails. No, a live debate. I don't think there is a Darwinist on the planet with the guts to do it.

In a way, though, you can have a debate between Dawkins and Sarfati by reading "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Dawkins and then "The Greatest Hoax on Earth" by Sarfati.

There is a simple reason that Darwinists exist. It isn't about science now, that went out the window after the discovery of DNA. It is all about worldviews. Worldviews cause the MSNBC's of this world to publish alarmist articles citing "scientists" about corals dying or polar bears threatened and other such nonsense. You can find two scientists to say just about anything and then write a column citing "scientists say." No longer is the popular discussion of science really about science. The headlines on MSN shriek about global warming while scientists who study the Sun are concerned about global cooling. Unfortunately it is political correctness and spin that we get from the mainstream media and most folks are content with that. Most folks just do their jobs and live their lives and take in whatever CBS happens to say that evening and maybe watch NatGeo channel now and again. No inquisitive natures, no critical thinking, just humming and drumming along.

But life is not just 70 years and then you check out. The ruling paradigm of historical/forensic/origins science is not about truth. It isn't about science at all. It is about those who do not want to believe in God or have a responsibility to that God. The scriptures can nail it easily in four parts:

All scripture below - New King James Version (NKJV)

John 8:32

32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

John 14:6

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

Psalm 14:1 (a)

–To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

1 The fool has said in his heart,

“There is no God.”

Romans 1:20-21

20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

The above scriptures pretty well sum up the problem we face in the world today. Darwinism, climate alarmism, eco-nuttery to the point of terrorism have infused even our very government. Insanely, in the middle of a bad recession the Obama administration intends to tax and hamper domestic energy production for the sake of a nonexistent climate crisis that, truth be told, is in fact perhaps the dumbest thing the Obama Administration is concerned about - global warming at a time when the Sun might send us into a mini-ice age? That is bonehead on steroids!

It is a lack of the fear and respect and love of God that has sent our country into a tailspin. Our founders gave us a federal republic based on the Judeo-Christian ethic and they could only hope that the country would continue to honor its roots. In the America Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and James Madison and Benjamin Franklin helped craft, all faiths would be allowed to worship as they pleased within the confines of the law and no one faith was supposed to be the State Religion. Well, Secular Humanism is the State Religion now and we see prosperity, morality and personal freedoms being eroded as a result. Tolerance is replacing morality and political correctness is valued more highly than integrity. A man or woman of good character is getting harder to find as schools and even many churches have abandoned the moral compass of our forefathers and what winds up happening is in line with the theme of the Book of Judges. One defining statement is "Again the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD"and the other,"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."So Israel turned away from God, things went downhill, they would call out to God for help and then soon forget Him and go back to their previous sins until great troubles again overcame them.

There is hope, because new groups of ID and Creationist scientists are popping up all over the globe. Many scientists just keep quiet about their Darwinist doubts for fear of losing their jobs. It is an honest fear, as I will report in the follow-up, but now many victims are going to court and winning judgments against Darwinists for their prejudicial behavior. For now, an interview Jonathan did with a nuclear physicist is quite telling, as during the interview logical reasons for believing in a Creator are found at the very core of Physics, just as they are at the very core of Biology:

Dr Jim Mason has a B.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and a Ph.D. in Experimental Nuclear Physics from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He had a 37-year engineering and management career in defence electronics developing ASW (anti-submarine warfare) systems and land tactical C4 (computerized command, control, communications) systems. This included the positions of Vice President and Engineering and Chief Technology Officer for one of Canada’s leading defence electronics system integration companies and being a member of that company’s Executive Committee. Dr Mason’s hobbies include skiing (downhill and cross-country), gardening/landscaping, home renovating and spending time with his two grandchildren. He and his wife Rosemary have three children and reside just outside Lakefield, Ontario near their two granddaughters.

Biblical Christianity: the perfect logical system

Without the first 11 chapters of Genesis being taken as historical narrative and plainly understood as written, the rest of the Bible and, in particular, the New Testament message of salvation, does not compute.

Recently during a ministry tour of Canada, I had the pleasure of travelling with Dr Jim Mason, CMI-Canada’s newest speaker. I was interested to find out that he didn’t become a Christian till he was almost 40. So why would a logical scientist accept something that the world largely mocks?

“I have become increasingly amazed at how comprehensive and yet internally consistent the Bible and Christianity are. I spent most of my working career as a System Engineer developing complex and sophisticated defence electronic systems. Consequently, I have come to think of the Bible and Christianity as the perfect system.”

Dr Mason compares biblical Christianity with the Apollo system that sent men to the moon and returned them safely: this included everything that was required, and didn’t have anything unnecessary to its goal. The same is true of biblical Christianity. “However”, Jim says, “the Apollo system, being man-made, was not perfect as amply demonstrated by the near catastrophe of the Apollo 13 mission. Conversely, the Bible/Christianity is perfect, having been crafted by God.”

And as Dr Mason later realised, a vital foundation to this system is the first 11 chapters of Genesis:

Dr James Mason, wife and granddaughters

“Without these chapters being taken as historical narrative and plainly understood as written, the rest of the Bible and, in particular, the New Testament message of salvation, does not compute. It’s like the Saturn V rocket of the Apollo system. Without it, achieving the mission is impossible. Thanks, in part, to the excellent material on the CMI website, I came to realize that such an interpretation is well-supported scientifically, including in my own area of nuclear physics.”

But if Genesis is foundational, then how can evolution and long ages be reconciled to the Bible? Jim realised that it couldn’t:

“It destroys the Gospel by destroying its foundation. Adam and Eve disappear, original sin disappears, death through sin disappears, the need for a Saviour disappears and indeed, in the end, salvation and eternal life disappear.”

Furthermore, “evolution is at odds with the Bible everywhere”:

“The Big Bang says nothing created everything, versus the Bible that teaches that everything was created by the Word of God; the earth, sun, moon and stars formed by gradual accretion over billions of years rather than in a few days by the Word of God; life occurring by accident rather than by holy fiat; humans evolving over millions of years from an ape-like ancestor rather than being created in the image of God in a single day; death being an essential part of the world from the start rather than being an unintended but necessary consequence of mankind’s original sin.”

No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution necessarily implies continuous change …. The exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it … the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent. James Clerk Maxwell

Real science supports the Bible

So, what areas of Dr Mason’s own expertise support the biblical creation model and oppose the secular evolutionary one? Jim points to the building blocks of nature and their economy of design, something that impressed the great creationist founder of electromagnetism, James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), who wrote:

“No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution necessarily implies continuous change … . The exact equality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it … the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent.”1

Modern science strengthens this argument, as Jim explains:

“Elementary particle physics tells us there are only 3 fundamental particles, each occurring in a few variants resulting in a total of only 24 elementary particles. Everything in the entire universe is made from and held together by these 24 particles.”

Yet from just these 24 basic building blocks, “There are 118 chemical elements which can be combined to create almost innumerable compounds like iron oxide, calcium carbonate and amino acids; and these can be combined to create almost innumerable substances like bubble gum, proteins and concrete; and these can be combined to create even grander structures like buildings and airplanes and computers and even the human body. That sure looks like design at its best.”

“Yet the evolutionists would have us believe that these 24 particles just happened by accident and then just happened to accidentally combine into particles that then just happened to combine into the elements, that then just happened to combine into a few compounds that then just happened to combine into a cell that then just happened to evolve into some humans and that only the airplanes, buildings and computers had to have a designer. Who are they kidding?”

Furthermore, he explains that only 12 of these particles provide 3 of the 4 forces that hold everything in the universe together, “design at its best”:

“These are the strong nuclear force that holds atomic nuclei together, the weak nuclear force that enables some types of radioactivity and the electromagnetic force which is responsible for just about every phenomenon we experience on a daily basis. The fourth, and weakest force, is gravity. These forces cover an incredible range of strengths and all behave differently: gravity only attracts; the electromagnetic force both attracts and repels; both act over infinitely long distances whereas the strong force only acts within the nucleus. Gravity, the weakest force, accounts for the motion of the stars and planets; the electromagnetic force accounts for light travelling from the stars to Earth. Finally, the strong force keeps all the nuclei in atoms from flying apart due to the electromagnetic repulsion between the protons.

“But that is not all. The relationship between these forces is so finely tuned that even a slight change in just one of these relationships would render the universe as we know it impossible. An accident? I don’t think so!”

In cases where the actual age of the rock is known, radiometric dating techniques typically give wildly erroneous ages. For example, rock formed in a lava flow from Mt. St. Helens in 1986 was radiometrically dated as 2.6 million years old!

Radiometric dating

Probably the strongest ‘evidence’ for the long ages required by evolution is right in Dr Mason’s field of expertise: radiometric dating. But he explained that it doesn’t actually measure age at all. Rather, it measures the ratio of the radioactive ‘parent’ element to the stable ‘daughter’ element in, say, a sample of rock today. And the age must be inferred by using these measurements in a calculation, and this relies on several unverifiable assumptions; e.g.:

“ … that there was no daughter element present when the rock was formed—i.e. the daughter element is entirely due to decay of the parent in the sample; that no amount of either parent or daughter has leached into or out of the rock since its formation; and that decay rate has not changed over time. If any of these assumptions are incorrect, it can dramatically change the calculation of the age. Since it is impossible to know for sure whether any of these have happened, it is not reasonable to trust the calculated age as accurate.”

Dr Mason points out:

“In cases where the actual age of the rock is known, radiometric dating techniques typically give wildly erroneous ages. For example, rock formed in a lava flow from Mt. St. Helens in 1986 was radiometrically dated as 2.6 million years old! If, every time you read a newspaper report concerning an incident about which you had first-hand knowledge, you found that the newspaper report was totally wrong, how many of these would you read before you began to suspect that all the reporting was wrong?”

After about 90,000 years of decay, there is so little 14C left that even today’s very sensitive instruments cannot detect it. … Yet 14C has been found in diamonds … even though the diamonds are allegedly 1 to 3 billion years old.

Furthermore, he shows that the long-agers’ favourite dating method, carbon dating, supports a much younger age. That’s because radioactive carbon is so short-lived it should not be present in anything over 100,000 years old, yet it is found in coal and diamonds allegedly many millions of years old (see his explanation in the box below).

Further evidence for a young age from nuclear physics comes from large amounts of helium found in tiny zircon crystals extracted from rocks that are allegedly 1.5 billion years old. The amount of uranium and lead present in the crystals indicated that the helium was the result of radioactive decay of the uranium. However, in the supposed 1.5 billion years of the rock’s existence, essentially all the helium that would have been produced by this decay should have diffused out of the crystals. Using the amount of helium actually present in the crystals and the rate of diffusion of helium through these crystals as measured by an independent laboratory, the age of the crystals, and therefore the rock from which they came was only about 5,700±2,000 years! This implies that the decay rate was much faster in the past—undermining a key assumption of radiometric dating.2

Encouragement

It should be very encouraging for scientifically-minded young people in church homes to see that real scientists like Dr Mason can embrace biblical creation. So did he have any advice for students thinking of studying science?

“Go for it! Science—that is operational science, how the world works—is fascinating stuff—and it is operational science that has provided all the technological and medical advances that make our present age so wonderful. However, be careful not to confuse the facts of operational science with the musings of origins science—that is the materialistic speculations about how things came to be. Don’t be afraid to ask, ‘Why do you say that?’ or ‘How do you know?’ about anything and everything. Truth will stand up to hard questions and deep digging!”

Carbon dating points to a young age.

Radioactive 14C is continually being formed in the atmosphere, and makes up about a trillionth of all carbon atoms on Earth. Because it is biologically almost indistinguishable from non-radioactive carbon (12C), it is absorbed by plants during photosynthesis and then by animals eating the plants and other animals eating the animals that eat the plants and, of course, by humans when we eat our burgers and broccoli. When the plant or animal dies, it stops absorbing carbon and the 14C decays without being replaced, thus changing the ratio of 14C to 12C in the dead plant/animal over time. Using very sensitive instruments, the current ratio in a sample of the dead plant/animal can be measured and used (along with the known rate of decay of 14C and the assumption that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has always been the same as today) to calculate an age for the specimen. However, after about 90,000 years of decay, there is so little 14C left that even today’s very sensitive instruments cannot detect it.

Coal

Numerous samples of coal from different seams in different parts of the US have been found to contain substantial amounts of 14C, even though, according to the evolutionary time scale, the samples are allegedly between 37 million and 318 million years old. What’s more, the amount of 14C found is of the order of 100 times the sensitivity of the instruments, so it is not simply a minor measurement blip. Some people try to dismiss this as contamination of the sample during processing, but the laboratories that do these measurements have developed sophisticated procedures to make sure that this does not happen. Interestingly, despite the supposed wide range in ages, the age calculated from the 14C measurements for all the coal samples is very similar—about 50,000 years.

iStockphoto

This is still appreciably larger than the biblical age. However, it is reasonable to assume that the amount of 14C in the atmosphere at creation was zero rather than the same as today, that it would take time for it to increase to today’s level, and that the disruption of the Flood would cause other drastic changes to this ratio. Incorporating these things into the calculations can easily bring the computed age in line with the biblical age.3

Diamonds

Carbon-14 in diamonds is another example of a young age measurement in substances that are ‘supposed to be’ very old. Diamond is the hardest substance on earth, because it’s an extremely rigidly-packed crystal of carbon. Therefore it’s impervious to the alleged possible contamination that has been used to try to dismiss the results for coal, although unreasonably. Yet 14C has been found in diamonds at essentially the same level as in the coal samples even though the diamonds are allegedly 1 to 3 billion years old.4

Baumgardner, J., 14C evidence for a recent global flood and a young earth; in Vardiman, L., Snelling, A. and Chaffin, E., Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. II, ch. 8, Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA, 2005.

5 comments:

Yep, that about says it all. As you know, the concept of the "heart" is all about the inner being, identity, and emotions. The heart is where love emanates from. "Home is where the heart is". Sadness = a "broken heart", etc.

The scripture here suggests that it is "foolish hearts" that become "darkened". It is "foolish hearts" that love darkness. It is "foolish hearts" that want to make their home in darkness. It is foolish to reject "enlightenment" and reason. Only fools or sinners feel comfortable in darkness...

"And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed." --John 3:19-20

"Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." --John 8:12

"Jesus answered, 'Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.'" --John 11:9

"Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness." --Luke 11:34-35

[God sends Paul] "to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God..." --Acts 26:18a

Thank God that we know the truth...

"and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." --John 8:32

You know it, Hawkeye! Good Christian guy, megabrain, speaks geek fluently. Guess what, he agrees with me on Kirshner and Gerhart's work as well! It is fun to hang out with someone you know is smarter than you are, too.

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The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.Francis Maitland Balfour